New Horizons helps special needs adults in the San Fernando Valley

by Dana Bartholomew from The Los Angeles Daily News:
LAKE VIEW TERRACE >> When Marilyn Weiss wants to head out on a date with her boyfriend, she’s hit on a hot ticket for getting around Los Angeles: the bus.
This year, the developmentally disabled woman took advantage of a new travel training program at New Horizons that has helped widen her urban world — to the movies, to the mall and as far away as historic Pasadena.
“I like it,” said Weiss, 59, of North Hills, beaming. “Because I can take the bus by myself. Makes me feel happy. Him, too.
“Without New Horizons, I’d be bored. I’d be nothing. I’d stay home.”

New Horizons, the San Fernando Valley’s oldest social service agency to help special needs adults, celebrated 60 years of service Saturday with a seventh annual 5K Run/Walk on the Horizon.
Where smiling greeters waved to visitors along a road leading into the Hansen Dam Aquatics Center in Lake View Terrace.
Where up to 300 hoofers circled the fog-shrouded waters to support the North Hills-based agency that empowers special needs residents through training for independent travel, education, recreation, work and housing.

And where family members could recall a not-so-distant time when such disabled residents were shunned to the shadows of their communities.
“Way back in the Dark Ages, we were told to get rid of these kids, put ‘em in the house,” said Susan Gross, a member of Friends of New Horizons, whose daughter Cindy has found a measure of freedom through the agency for three decades. “We’re not going to do it, because they’re our children.
“My daughter’s a fighter.”